The Warrior Fighting Vehicle comes careening down the hill and screams to a stop. Infantrymen pour out the back and approach, under smoke and flashbangs, an enemy compound. The director calls out and the soldiers stop their assault, regrouping to the tracked, armoured, 25-tonne vehicle. Helmets come off and groups of soldiers form, lolling on the knoll while the director reviews footage with a young lieutenant. Cameras pause and scenes reset on the training ranges outside Paderborn, Germany.

It’s not the scene of an action movie shoot, but that of a recruitment film being developed for the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (PWRR). The 1st Battalion, stationed in Paderborn, is one of the regiment’s three battalions – the 2nd is located in Cyprus and the reservist 3rd in East Anglia – all of which will have their own chance to become actors. The PWRR commissioned a series of films from GrosvenorFilm, part of drp, to target recruitment and community audiences.

Inside the regimental headquarters at the Tower of London, weeks before the Paderborn trip, the creative brief is discussed by the PWRR’s communications officers and Grosvenor’s filmmakers. The project is motivated by the challenges now facing the regiment in terms of recruitment, veteran support and brand awareness. Though it has a long history – it’s regimental mascot, the Tiger, is an actual (now long dead) tiger returned from the unit’s 20-year deployment to India – it is a newly branded regiment.

The modern day PWRR is the result of the 1992 amalgamation of the Queen’s Regiment and the Royal Hampshire Regiment. Though closely linked to its location in the south of England, the broadened scope led to lower awareness among potential recruits. Additionally, competition from other arms of the military have increased for a limited pool of recruits. The videos are also intended to raise awareness for the regiment to ensure continued support within the business community for military charities that support the PWRR.

But, despite a recent rebrand and sustained communications effort, “There was something missing in our armoury,” according to one of the Tigers’ communications officers. That missing element was an impactful recruitment campaign geared toward young people that is designed for social media. Film was the logical route because of it’s ability to hold interest, tell a story and depict exciting action, the Tigers say.

Des Good, MD of GrosvenorFilm, says the initial brief, which called for a two to three minute recruitment film, shifted slightly as more internal stakeholders were engaged. The regiment and production company decided to shoot two cuts of a short, 1:30 minute film for recruitment purposes and two cuts of a longer 10 minute documentary that would be geared toward the business community, military charities and other interested parties seeking more information about the PWRR. 

Lastly, the films are designed to tackle misconceptions among the general public about the modern military, its values and rules of engagement and the way in which it is used in today’s conflicts. The PWRR has taken part in most major conflicts in recent decades from the Falkland Islands to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The brief called for something shareable on social media, something that would interest teenagers. Director Zac Marsden from GrosvenirFilm, thus has borrowed from role-playing video games to get a first-person perspective of the action on film and to depict an adrenaline-filled, visually exciting and fast-paced story. For that reason, the 1st Battalion is not going through counterinsurgency inspired exercises – attacking enemy compounds, clearing multistorey structures, etc. – but they are doing so with GoPro cameras.

The GoPro has swiftly become a popular gadget among the masses, but its usefulness in film production is unparalleled as it can provide a unique, first-person perspective. Marsden, to harness this, rigged up a GoPro mounted on a mouthguard to see as if through the eyes of the soldier.

Initial footage was instantly transferred to Marsden’s iPad for review. He said he was stunned when watching the first playbacks of GoPro footage because it was like a scene from Call of Duty – a popular conflict-based role-playing game. “I really want to see the Call of Duty-style pushed forward. I like to push the limits of what’s been done before,” Marsden says.

The soldiers ran through a few house-clearing exercises before Marsden and director of photography, Rob Hawthorne, headed to a hilly field where a Warrior was given free reign. The vehicle’s disgorged complement of soldiers races toward the compound, guns blazing (firing blanks), often not stopping when the shot is cut.

“Soldiers like showing off, they’re the best actors in the world,” the PWRR’s comms officer said in a creative meeting. That is seconded by Lt. Col. Mike Cornwell, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion. For many, the opportunity to be in the video is a good motivation. But they are also taking part in something for regimental, as well as personal, pride. Cornwell says, “We’re trying to demonstrate what we provide as a capability that is unique,” referring to the regiment’s primary role as armoured infantry, and to demonstrate how the regiment can be used in conflict.

The videos themselves get Cornwell’s point across amply. The documentary version is intended to explain the role of the PWRR and its unique character. Officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted soldiers all share their views on the regiment and what makes it special. One comments on the sporting opportunities available and competitive spirit. Another makes note of a long-running family connection. Others describe the PWRR’s history and the context in which it was formed. They recount recent deployments, discuss current postings and explain the regiment’s logistical capabilities.

The interviews are overlaid with footage from the three battalions in action. In Cyprus, the arid setting feels akin to the PWRR’s most recent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. The regiment was one that served in Basra, in southern Iraq in the earlier days of the conflict. Their heroics in holding the British base against an enemy siege is one of the most heralded stories from the war. It also earned the Tigers the military’s only Victoria Cross, the highest military honour, since 1982. Johnson Beharry, the recipient, speaks in the documentary about the regiment on whose behalf he accepted the award.

The narrative style and age range represented in the documentary allowed senior editor Paul Edwards and graphics and video editor Alastair Mogford to include more content from the filming process. Sitting in front of a bank of screens, Edwards selects different shots from over 13 hours of film. He and Mogford have to ensure that the two films don’t share too much footage and that each speaker has an equal contribution, without anyone taking the limelight.

“What made this edit difficult was having so much footage to choose from. It’s harder than it sounds,” Mogford says. “That’s why it was so important to order it correctly then to build toward maximum intensity.” Edwards adds, “It’s like sculpting. You have to be really brutal. You have to get down to the point where you ask, ‘Is it really essential?’” However, because of the range of filming locations and the variety of settings – from the wide-open shooting ranges to the tight confines of a training house to the fields on which the Warriors drive – Marsden had to plan carefully ahead of filming. He shot on s-log, a format akin to shooting still photography RAW in which the picture is ungraded allowing the lighting and colouring work to be done in post-production.

The editors were then able to unify the images from Cyprus, England and Germany and turn daylight exercises into dramatic night-time operations. The freedom with colour allowed them to bring Army drab greens and khakis to life and emphasise the Tigers’ colours of blue and gold while ensuring overall consistency. The final element was sound. Though Marsden and Hawthorne shot with sound in the field, the sound effects were almost entirely generated during the editing process. This enabled Edwards and Mogford to keep sound levels uniform but to also over-emphasise certain sounds, particularly for the short video.

The adrenaline-pumping recruitment film, ‘Join the Tigers,’ looks, and sounds, like a video game. Its quick cuts and stuttering sound effects keep up the pace as a cinematic track comes in about 20 seconds into the cut. The music, Edwards says, is selected from stock
libraries, but chosen to maintain the dramatic style of the film. Without narration, the music is charged with maintaining the film’s flow. Music in the documentary is still pulsing, but less so than its recruitment video cousin.

Designed to get teenagers to take notice, the punchy video ends with a series of slo-mo shots of soldiers in action overlaid with the legend ‘Fierce pride’ – the Tigers motto. Since the launch on 28 October, ‘Join the Tigers’ has racked up at least 1,000 shares and 50,000 views across Facebook and YouTube and the documentary, has over 3,500 views on YouTube alone.

“That’s the big think that we’re thinking about the whole time, is who we are talking to,” Edwards says about ensuring the audience is the film’s priority. The resulting films are a strong representation of the PWRR and make for a unique example of style and narrative content in Army communications. But the objective set out in the creative brief remains important, “The purpose of the communication plan is to provide information, generate awareness and create interest. All communications, both internally and externally, will ensure that these three objectives are at the forefront.” The regiment has seeded the videos to their social channels and community pages.

The films end with a subtle call to action reading, “Search: Join the Tigers” or “Search: Friends of PWRR.” This directly responds to the objective to provide a ‘soft hook’ to encourage further engagement with the PWRR, but also responds to the regiment’s goal of raising awareness among its broad target audience. However, recruitment is a key priority and the real return on investment will be, according to the communications officer, “Blokes walking through the door.”